Death, as inevitable as it is intimate, often brings us back to the basics: friendship, connection, love. That’s the poignant core of Pedro Almodóvar’s latest feature, The Room Next Door. Known for his ability to capture emotional complexity on screen, Almodóvar takes on mortality in his first English-language feature, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. The indie drama made waves at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, taking home the prestigious Golden Lion award. According to Variety, this recognition highlights the emotional depth and artistic achievement of the film. With its US theatrical release approaching this winter, a new trailer has just been unveiled.
In The Room Next Door, adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s novel What Are You Going Through, two longtime friends, Ingrid (Moore) and Martha (Swinton), reconnect under bittersweet circumstances. Once colleagues at the same magazine, their friendship was forged through youthful passion and ambition. Over time, they drifted apart—Ingrid pursued a career as an autofiction author, while Martha ventured into the high-stakes world of war correspondence.
The trailer sets the scene with the friends on a road trip, heading to a secluded cabin in the woods. Martha is clearly unwell, confronting a terminal diagnosis with unwavering determination. “I will not go out in mortifying anguish,” she asserts, expressing her wish to face death on her own terms—a wish she asks Ingrid to help her fulfill. Though reluctant at first, Ingrid eventually agrees—an act that binds her to Martha in a deeply profound, yet legally dangerous way. Martha’s words—“I’ll sleep with my door open, and the day that you find it closed, it’s the day that it’s already happened”—echo with the finality of her decision, their gravity amplified by the forest’s stillness. The trailer captures their time together in intimate glimpses—sharing laughter, revisiting old memories, and embracing quiet as Martha awaits her final moments.
The Room Next Door may also serve as a farewell for Tilda Swinton, whose remarkable career has spanned decades and earned her an Oscar, a BAFTA, and numerous Golden Globe nominations. In a recent interview with Elle, Swinton hinted that this role might be her last, saying, “I’ve always intended that each film would be my final one. It was not wanting to jinx anything because I have had such fun from start to finish. I always thought, ‘Well, that’s a good one to go out on. Let’s just quit while we’re ahead.’ And I feel it today. I feel The Room Next Door is the last film I make. Let’s see if anything else happens.”
Discussing the movie’s themes, Swinton added: “The feeling of powerlessness that we have to engage with around mortality, or, by the way, around aging. We have to get with the program. We are powerless. And that in and of itself is a sort of taboo. But being powerless in the face of mortality or aging is grace. It’s life.”
Alongside Moore and Swinton, the film features a stellar supporting cast including Alessandro Nivola, John Turturro, Alex Høgh Andersen, Melina Matthews, Juan Diego Botto, Victoria Luengo, and Esther McGregor, adding even more emotional depth and nuance to this narrative.
The Room Next Door will open in US theaters on December 20th, 2024. Prepare for a film this winter that will challenge your heart and leave you contemplating the true essence of connection.
